India opener KL Rahul on his coming of age as a batsman, the methods that have brought him success, and learning from Virat Kohli

Interview by Gaurav Kalra14-Sep-201617:13

‘Enjoy the challenge of playing all three formats’ – Rahul

Where has all the hair gone?
It’s at home! I gave some of it to my mother. I had it for a long time. I thought I needed a change, so…I read a story somewhere that the hair was for a reason. Apparently your coach told you that you can have the long hair after certain things are achieved. Is that correct?
It is just a general thing that every coach in India says. If he sees a player who is interested in being stylish, is adventurous and wants to play with his hair, he will always tell you, “Play for India and then you do whatever you want.” That wasn’t why I grew my hair. I just had a lot of time on my hands after the South Africa series last year till the IPL. I had six to eight months at home, so it was easy for me to take care of it. I always wanted to grow long hair, so I grew it for some time. It might grow back again, but I am not sure.The last time I spoke to you, you were just returning from illness. You must be very pleased with how the last few months have gone.
Yes, I am really happy with the results I have achieved. Seeing the results of all the hard work I’ve put in for the last five-six years is extremely satisfying. The way I have played, the approach and the attitude I have had in the last six-eight months is what pleases me more than anything else. Even if I hadn’t gotten the same results, I would have still been happy because I’m enjoying myself and [I’m] going out into the field with the same amount of commitment and focus. I am enjoying the challenges that are coming my way, the responsibility of batting up the order. In the Test matches when the team is batting with just six batsmen, you know you have to deliver.You haven’t played a Test or any international at home. There’s a big home season coming. How eagerly are you looking forward to it?
I am really excited about coming back to India and playing some international games. I have been part of Test teams that have played in India before but haven’t got a chance in the XI. I am really hungry to do well in India, I have played here all my life. I feel like I know the conditions well, but you never know. It can be different when you play international cricket, and I understand that. I am really keen to go out there and start well in the first Test in Kanpur.

“I never plan or have targets. It only limits you from achieving what you can”

A long season and a lot of Test cricket is part of it. You have done well in long-form cricket. You’ve made runs every time you have had an opportunity.

I quite enjoy playing the longer format. I’m not saying I enjoy T20 or 50-over formats any less, but each format challenges you differently. I have been very consistent in domestic cricket and I hope I can continue with the same form in international cricket as well. I look to keep things simple irrespective of the format. I look to play my shots. I will play proper cricketing shots, but if the ball is there to be hit, I will hit it. That is something that won’t change with any format. With competitive and quality sides coming in the next six-eight months, it will be a big challenge, and if I can keep things simple and have the same attitude and approach as the last six months, I think I’ll do better. I have learnt a lot from the series in the West Indies and Sri Lanka a year ago. I have learnt a lot sitting outside and watching people play. The likes of [M] Vijay, Virat [Kohli] and Ajinkya [Rahane] – how they have been successful in Test cricket, I have learnt a lot from sitting in the dressing room. I am eager to go out there and perform like they have in the last few years, and the home series should be a big challenge.There is a lot of talk that your generation of players doesn’t really appreciate Test cricket as much as the newer, faster forms. Is that just talk on the outside? From your point of view, how important is Test cricket?
I can’t talk for anybody else, things like this don’t really affect me. Like I said, I like playing all three formats – they all challenge you differently and I am someone who enjoys the challenges. Having to play Test matches for a month and then switch to T20s in five days is not easy, but that’s the kind of challenge I love to face. I respect Test cricket a lot. I wanted to play Test cricket. My coaches and my dad always thought I should look at playing Test cricket. That was my focus initially. Once I got into the Test team I learnt so much about international cricket and realised it’s not so different. If you keep it simple and play cricketing shots you can be successful. Luckily for me, the IPL helped this year. I realised I could play all three formats, and I feel a lot more confident now.”This year’s IPL was the key moment for me to start believing in myself and my shorter-format abilities”•BCCISince you mention the IPL, one of the big revelations this season was your ability to hit the big shot. Was there a moment when you said, “I’ve got to get this right”? Can you talk us through how you got to this point?
There was no one moment. It was hard work for the last four-five years. I always thought of becoming a better short-format player and I thought hitting sixes would also help me in Test cricket. It is important to put the spinners off when they come in to bowl, especially for me as an opening batsman. If I can put them under pressure, it will make life easier for the batsmen coming in. I realised that three-four years ago and started working on my six-hitting and paid a lot of importance to my fitness. I wanted to get a lot stronger, fitter, quicker, because I knew that would help me in all three formats and prolong my career. I started paying more attention to things like fitness and nutrition and it has been helping me a lot.You unveiled this six-hitting in a sense at this IPL. Did you come into the tournament knowing that this part of your game was in better shape than it’s ever been?
Of course. This year’s IPL was the key moment for me to start believing in myself and my shorter-format abilities. Once people saw it they started believing it too. I think it is very important when your own team-mates start believing that you have the game. I showed them that in the IPL, where you have your own team-mates backing you and you have a leader like Virat Kohli, who is always inspiring you to get better and who believes in you. It was important I got a few good innings under my belt. I always knew I could play the shorter format but it was about putting a few performances there. A couple of good innings and I knew I will start believing a lot more in myself, so yes, it worked out well for me this summer.Is Virat someone you have modelled yourself on, not just from the batting point of view but also from things off the pitch in terms of fitness and preparation?
Yes, I think I have. He is such an inspiration. We feel lucky that we don’t have to look too far. The guy who inspires you is sitting right next to you in the dressing room. The level of commitment that he has shown, the discipline and work ethic, the way he has been so disciplined with his fitness, nutrition and diet – that is something that has inspired all of us. If you come into the dressing room now you can see how all the boys are so disciplined. He’s helped me in shaping my career. When I came into Test cricket, I was good but not as good as I am now. Virat has helped me with my preparation, mindset, and he has given me a lot of confidence.

“The level of commitment Virat has shown, the discipline and work ethic, the way he has been so disciplined with his fitness, nutrition and diet, that is something that has inspired all of us”

Anil Kumble was very appreciative of you getting a hundred in a Test match and then playing a very different innings in the T20 in Florida. Can you talk us through the mental process for these adjustments?
It is really strange, but there is no mental switch that I make. If you saw the innings in St Lucia, I got a 50 in 56 balls or something opening the innings when the ball was doing a little bit. I try to keep things very simple. I go into the field, try to assess the pitch and the situation, see what are the best shots I can play and what is the best approach to have on that day. In Florida, obviously we had to chase a big target so it was very clear in my head that I need to have a good start from ball one. We knew the wicket was good, I got a few boundaries away and I was feeling good. I wanted to do the same thing, play cricketing shots and not worry too much about the score or the results. I just wanted to see how well I could read the bowlers mind and how well I could hit the ball.So you are saying a lot of this is talk on the outside? A Test match or a one-day game or a T20 situation, from a players’ point of view is a lot simpler than it is made out to be?
It is as simple as you make it out to be. There’s not a lot I change in my game. If the ball is there to be hit, I will hit it. Obviously with Test matches, the ball swings a lot more and it swings for longer, so if you see the ball moving you will obviously be a little more conscious. With the white ball, if you’ve played a few overs, there’s not a lot that happens so you feel more confident, you see bigger gaps, the fielders are on the boundary, so you can push your ones and twos. Once you get 15-20, you feel more confident about going over the top. That is what I have stuck to doing and its worked well for me so far.Your training is that of an opener. What sort of adjustment have you had to make when you are pushed lower down the order?
Again, it is how you look at it. I have always been someone who hasn’t had big plans walking in. I play a couple of balls, then see what the situation demands of me – the roles and responsibilities I have and what are the shots I can play. Whenever I have walked in, the team needed me to do well and I have kind of enjoyed that pressure. In the modern game, you have to be flexible with whatever the team needs you to do.”There’s not a lot I change in my game. If the ball is there to be hit I will hit it”•BCCIIn Florida, the partnership with MS Dhoni was the high point. There was a serenity in the way you guys approached the target. Can you talk us through that partnership?
I felt a lot more comfortable when he walked in knowing he is the greatest finisher in world cricket. I knew he would come up with something special. When he walked in we still had eight-nine overs. He told me “we need to run our runs hard and we can go after the bowling when there’s five overs left”. Luckily we both were in good form. He was striking the ball well from ball one and I already had 50. The boundaries were coming, we were getting 12-13 runs an over without taking risks. We didn’t plan too much or let the situation get to us or worry about the score. We were matching up to the required rate every over. We just tried to take it as deep as we could and we did quite well till the final over. All credit to [Dwayne] Bravo as well, he bowled a really good last over. I don’t think if it happens again we will do the same mistakes as we did in the Florida game. We will be better the next time.You are now one of only three Indians with an international hundred in all formats. Do you think about milestones?
I just go out there and bat, milestones and numbers have never been important to me. I always want to win games for my team wherever I play. So even the hundred in Florida is not as satisfying because we didn’t win. For me, it is more important to give my team a good start, provide a cushion to get the opposition out twice, if it is a Test match. If it is a one-dayer, have the luxury of runs so that the bowlers can bowl with a free mind. That is what is more important to me. I never plan or have targets. It only limits you from achieving what you can. I always go there to play the situation, keep things simple. That way you won’t put pressure on yourself, you will enjoy cricket more, you will be focused on one ball at a time and that is the best space a batsman can be in.One aspect of your cricket we haven’t seen much of late is wicketkeeping. Do you still focus on that?
I do carry the keeping gloves, because you never know. I had to keep for an innings in Sri Lanka. I try to keep myself ready, try to keep in touch because you never know when the gloves can be thrown at you, and when you are expected to do a job. When I am expected to do something and I don’t I feel really bad, I like to be prepared. So I try to work on my wicketkeeping.You may in the future be asked to do the job not just in ODIs and T20s but maybe even Test matches. Are you ready for anything?
I know this challenge can be thrown at me, that’s why I have started working a lot harder on my fitness because keeping will demand a different sort of fitness. If I have to keep and bat, it will take a lot out of my body. So I have started to train harder and focus on eating right and whatever helps recover my body, I am trying to take care of that. It helps to have great support staff to look after you, they guide as well. I am sure the gloves will come on at some point. I will be ready and I will enjoy that too.

Taskin Ahmed’s rehabilitative work has paid dividends and led to joyous scenes in his neighbourhood, but there remains much hard work to be done by other Bangladesh bowlers with suspect actions

Mohammad Isam24-Sep-2016A garland was put around Taskin Ahmed’s neck as he was mobbed by neighbours, friends and relatives on Friday evening. The Bangladesh fast bowler couldn’t enter his house in southern Mohammadpur as kids of all ages tried to lift his hand. He waved at the crowd and shed a few tears.Less than a kilometer to the west, selector Habibul Bashar was about to go to the pharmacy when his wife, scared of all the bursts and pops in the nearby area, asked him to stay indoors. Bashar headed out nonetheless, unaware of what was happening just few blocks away. When he arrived at the Shere Bangla National Stadium on Saturday, he greeted Taskin who then described what had happened outside his house.”They burst crackers and rockets worth thousands. Everyone was celebrating, including my parents. I joined in too,” said a smiling Taskin, who had informed his mother first when he heard the good news on Friday afternoon.It was a scene out of an election campaign, and hardly something you would imagine for a fast bowler who had just had his bowling action cleared by the ICC. Certainly no cricketer who had just got cleared for an illegal bowling action has received such a reception.But that is how they roll in Zakir Hossain Road, Taskin’s quiet central Dhaka neighbourhood. When he plays for Bangladesh, there are posters of him everywhere in the area and kids try to imitate his bowling action and latest hairstyle. When he does well, his parents see neighbours bursting crackers and wishing them well. Now, they were celebrating the end of his exile, or at least that’s what it felt like.”When I walked out in the street, people asked me why my arm wasn’t straight,” Taskin said, recalling the time after his action had been reported. “There was a lot of pressure on me, so I am really happy now. This is an occasion to feel relieved, and I look forward to returning to international cricket.”The clean chit for Taskin’s action came as a satisfying reward for his hard work in the nets with bowling coach Mahbub Ali Zaki. It also vindicated his decision to play for Abahani Limited in the Dhaka Premier League, Bangladesh’s domestic one-day tournament, which was seen at the time as a risky move and a hindrance to his rehabilitative training routine.But Taskin regularly worked overtime after Abahani’s training sessions between April and June, ensuring he was progressing as planned by Heath Streak and later Zaki. He monitored every single delivery, and then the footage was passed on to the BCB’s newly-formed bowling action review committee in August. He gave a mock test in front of their cameras, after which he was told that his bouncer, the delivery identified as illegal in Chennai in March, looked clean. But no one could be sure.Taskin and Arafat Sunny headed out earlier this month to Brisbane for their reassessment, their only route back to international cricket. Both are now in the clear, and for Taskin there is immediate on-field action in the Afghanistan-Bangladesh ODI series.The boisterous celebrations demonstrated Taskin’s popularity, but the experience he and Sunny have had over the last six months should serve as a cautionary tale for the many domestic bowlers whose actions have been questioned by the BCB’s review committee. It was the suspensions of Taskin and Sunny that spurred the BCB to take suspect bowling action seriously in domestic cricket, so the garlands and firecrackers shouldn’t mark the end of this problem.It was Taskin and Sunny who were given the relief, and before them Abdur Razzak and Sohag Gazi. The rest of the country’s suspected and illegal bowlers would still need to correct their actions, and the BCB must remain vigilant and keep weeding out the suspects.

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Oct-2016Sami Aslam helped address the slide with his fifth Test fifty•Getty ImagesYounis Khan could have been stumped for 30, but he survived and went on to make 51•Getty ImagesMisbah-ul-Haq too could have been dismissed for 6, had an lbw appeal gone West Indies’ way. He made 53•AFPDevendra Bishoo helped make up for these missed opportunities, taking four wickets after tea•AFPAnd Pakistan, who had begun the final session on 148 for 3, finished a precarious 255 for 8•AFP

Five years after his coaching debut with Australia, Mickey Arthur is back at the Gabba. This time as the coach of Australia’s opponents

Brydon Coverdale12-Dec-2016Back in 2011, Mickey Arthur became the first foreigner to be appointed Australia’s coach. His first Test in charge was at the Gabba, where David Warner, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon and Usman Khawaja were all part of the XI. This week Arthur returns to the Gabba, now as an Australian citizen. Again Warner, Starc, Lyon and Khawaja will play, and again Arthur is coach. Only, now he’s coach of Australia’s opponents.”A true gentleman,” the Australia captain, Michael Clarke, called Arthur in the lead-up to that 2011 Brisbane Test. “To me it doesn’t matter where you come from, if you’re the right man for the job… then I believe you deserve to get it,” Clarke said of Arthur at the time. Arthur got it, all right. Got it right in the back, on the eve of the 2013 Ashes. He was appointed to end a year of hand-wringing, navel-gazing and Argus-reviewing. He was ousted in a coup he never saw coming.Now that Arthur returns to where it all started, he calls the whole experience surreal. Perhaps not in a Salvador Dali melting-clocks kind of way, but for Arthur the persistence of memory is no less vivid. For a year and a half, these Australians were his men. His fingerprints remain on the side. One of his final acts was making Steven Smith a late addition to the 2013 Ashes squad. In that series, Smith scored his first Test century, and the rest is history. But by then Arthur was history too.

Arthur was appointed to end a year of hand-wringing, navel-gazing and Argus-reviewing. He was ousted in a coup he never saw coming

In his last stretch as coach, Arthur’s Australians lost a home Test series to South Africa and were crushed 4-0 in India. It is a scenario that might soon look very familiar to his successor, Darren Lehmann. Although Arthur concedes that he might have erred by suspending players in India during the homework saga, he says he did what felt right at the time. He also admits that some part of him views the upcoming series as a chance to prove Cricket Australia wrong.”Of course there’s a part of me that feels that,” Arthur said. “And I wouldn’t be honest if I said otherwise. I always maintained that I loved my two years with Australia and I was very fortunate to be able to coach the Australian national team. I loved the first year and a bit of it – that was outstanding and I thought we made some significant progress.”But yes, there is a part me that’s coming back and wants to show that. But I’ve said it numerous times – the series isn’t about me versus Australia. The series is about two very, very good cricket teams going head to head, and I hope that can be the focus for the remainder of the tour because that’s exactly what it is.”Mitchell Starc has said the current Australian team is a lot closer under Lehmann than it was under Arthur•Getty ImagesAnd yet, as much as Arthur would like to shift from his own past, it is impossible to ignore the history. Starc, who debuted in that same Gabba Test that marked Arthur’s first game with Australia, said on Sunday that the current squad was “a lot closer” under Lehmann than Arthur. Lyon expressed a similar view on Monday, declaring Australia were now “one of the closest teams I’ve ever played in”.They are the kind of words that could hurt a man like Arthur, always jovial, always doing what he felt was right at the time. But nor are they surprising sentiments: during that period, the Michael Clarke-Shane Watson rift was playing out, and factions formed within the squad. Mitchell Johnson wrote in his memoir this year that he lost respect for Arthur after the homework sackings. Arthur, though, is pleased Australia are now in a better place.”It’s actually great to hear,” Arthur said. “I’m not beating around the bush when I say the team wasn’t very close in those times, but that was because of different characters. So that’s good to hear, and everybody inherits teams at different phases in their cycle. I came into the team after a very unstable period in Australian cricket.

Now that Arthur returns to where it all started, he calls the whole experience surreal. Perhaps not in a Salvador Dali melting-clocks kind of way, but for Arthur the persistence of memory is no less vivid

“The Argus review, there was a new director of cricket, a head coach, a convener of selectors and a captain all trying to find their way within a structure. So it was a tough period for Australian cricket – it was a tough time for all of us wanting to know what our boundaries were and how the whole jigsaw fitted in.”And it was a largely insecure time for the players as well, because there was a lot of change coming about. Dave Warner made his debut here, Mitchell Starc made his debut here in my time. There were a lot of young players – Nathan Lyon was trying to make his way. Young Phil Hughes at that point was trying to make his way. So it was a tough period for everybody, and during tough periods people are insecure.”There’s no two ways about that, and you can’t sugarcoat anything – that’s international sport, and your currency is performance, so it’s tough. And since then, the guys have matured, they’ve gone on and Mitchell Starc has become a world-class cricketer, so of course he feels more comfortable in his environment, obviously. It’s just different phases, that’s all.”Mitchell Johnson said he had lost respect for Arthur after the homework sackings•Getty ImagesOf course, much has changed since 2011, besides Arthur’s dismissal. John Inverarity came and went as chairman of selectors, and so did Rod Marsh. Clarke, Watson, Johnson, Ricky Ponting, Brad Haddin and Ryan Harris have all retired. The assistant coaches have all moved on. Of the hierarchy that Arthur worked within, team performance manager Pat Howard and CEO James Sutherland are among the only survivors.On field, Australia have had as many ups and downs as ever. Under Lehmann, there has been a 5-0 Ashes triumph at home, the lifting of a World Cup, and a return to No. 1 in the Test rankings. But there has also been the recent humiliation at the hands of South Africa, and a historic 3-0 series thrashing in Sri Lanka, which extended Australia’s record in Asia to nine straight losses.Lehmann’s job seems secure for now – he is contracted until 2019 – but should his men capitulate in India the way Australia did under Arthur in 2013, the landscape could change. When losses accumulate, pressure builds, and as Arthur learnt, something’s got to give. For now, he is happy to be back coaching in Brisbane, even if it is against his country of citizenship.”It’s pretty surreal really, to be walking into the Gabba,” he said. “It’s pretty surreal to be coming back as a visiting coach. But I guess that’s how the cricket world operates these days and that’s what happens. It’s a ruthless world out there. To be coming back to the Gabba and to have a tour of Australia is fantastic.”

Dinesh Karthik’s 14-year journey will reach a major milestone on Friday, when Tamil Nadu play against Karnataka in a quarter-final

Deivarayan Muthu in Visakhapatnam22-Dec-2016When Dinesh Karthik made his Ranji Trophy debut as a 16-year old in 2002, S Suresh, S Sriram, J Madanagopal, J Gokulakrishnan and Hemang Badani were his team-mates in the Tamil Nadu side. They have all become coaches now. In fact, Madanagopal and Gokulakrishnan coached Karthik at Albert TUTI Patriots in the Tamil Nadu Premier League. Karthik’s 14-year journey will reach a major milestone on Friday, when he plays his 100th Ranji match, which just happens to be a quarter-final against rivals Karnataka.Despite the time that has passed, Karthik retained vivid memories of his first outing as a first-class player. “I was just jumping, chilling and enjoying,” he told reporters in Visakhapatnam. “[S] Sharath had a wide, red eye looking at the wicket, big eyes and focussing and he used to tell me, ‘what? you are not focusing?’ The match was against Baroda in Guru Nanak Ground. Irfan [Pathan] was there and already on the verge of playing for India. I had no clue. I had just come from [playing] Under-19 [cricket] and enjoying [myself], just taking it casually.”Karthik came in to bat at No.8 and put on a fifty partnership with Sharath, which handed Tamil Nadu the first-innings lead. “They [Baroda] scored 380-400 odd, and we chased it back,” he said.” I was batting with Sharath and I had made a good 37 or something before tea, but after the break first ball I slashed at was caught behind. He was very upset, but I was just not bothered. I was like wow, and walked back as fast as I had come in.”In his second match against Uttar Pradesh at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Karthik remembered hitting his way to 88 not out. “I think there was a bit of pressure but I didn’t know,” he said. “I was not bothered about it also because I went to play India Under-19 after that. I was like, ‘cool, I am happy, you dropped me and I am on my flight for Under-19.’ It just never affected me and went with the ride.”At one point, after making that fifty, he had even told Sharath, ‘”Ranji Trophy is so easy man, it can’t be so easy’. Sharath looked at me and laughed for about five minutes without saying anything. Now after my ups and downs when I look back it’s such an immature statement”It isn’t difficult to see why Karthik felt unchallenged. He has all the shots in the book and a few that aren’t in there as well. And that made him a pretty handy limited-overs player.In a Champions League T20 game between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, R Ashwin went around the wicket, paused in his action, and then bowled a quicker one on middle and leg stump. Karthik, having shuffled outside off, paused as well and then viciously slog-swept his Tamil Nadu team-mate into the stands beyond square leg. Once, against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Karthik reverse-paddled medium-pacer Darren Sammy for four off the back of the bat for Delhi Daredevils in Dubai.All that flash has also got him into trouble. In Tamil Nadu’s first game of this year’s Ranji Trophy, Karthik attempted an ambitious scoop and perished in a tense low-scorer. Mumbai won. Several coaches have tried to wean him off the high-risk-low-reward shots, but those had also contributed to some of his more memorable performances too.”The first hundred I got [against Railways in 2003-04]…I had to play out the last ball of the day and we were 220 odd for 5 in a tricky situation. I stepped out and hit the last ball of the day for a six,” he said. “If you ask me to do that today, I won’t be able to do it. But that’s what I did then. I just felt that I could not defend so just stepped out and hit the ball. That was the mindset back then.”The one against Baroda where we were trailing and I got a hundred and we won; it was an important innings in the context of the game. Even against Railways, this season, we were behind eight-ball and I scored a hundred and we won the game. Then the hundred against Mumbai in the final [in 2004], they had a good bowling attack. Aavishkar Salvi, Nilesh Kulkarni. We were 60-70 for 5, and I got 120 odd and we just managed 300 and then they smashed us. It was a daunting task to play against Mumbai in the final then, so it was a good hundred. There have been a few hundreds, but reaching the final on three occasions has been a good thing for me, just that we haven’t been able to cross the line.”Karthik is now the senior-most player in the state side. While he was disappointed that a finger injury coincided with India’s hunt for a wicketkeeper to stand in for Wriddhiman Saha in the Test series against England, he has learnt to accept such setbacks are inevitable. He has learnt to move on.”It was touch and go between him [Parthiv Patel] and me,” he says. “My finger being injured didn’t help the situation. That’s how life is. Sometimes I might get an opportunity when nobody is expecting it. I have to take the good with the bad.”

Take your pick from some memorable individual and team performances in their 16-year Test history

ESPNcricinfo staff15-Mar-2017

It may have only been a warm-up match, but the sense of occasion to entertain the fans did not escape MS Dhoni in what may have been his last time leading an India side

Arun Venugopal in Mumbai11-Jan-2017 – MS Dhoni at a parade following the World T20 win in 2007Mumbai is many things. It is glitzy with its share of grime. It is larger than life and yet charmingly accessible. Mumbai is also Bollywood – the home of the Hindi movie industry. The latest blockbuster from the dream factory is released at the Brabourne Stadium on Tuesday. That it isn’t a holiday release doesn’t make a difference to the fans. This is limited-edition gold to be lived and breathed in the here and now, Tuesday or whatever day.”Dhoni…Dhoni…Dhoni…”There is more than half an hour left for the show to begin, but the thousands inside the stadium have already begun chanting the protagonist’s name. The few hundreds on the outside, who are anxious to make it on time, lend their vocals hoping the strength of their incantation would somehow make the queue move faster. As the time for the toss nears, their hero, MS Dhoni, enters the frame with that characteristic brisk, broad-shouldered walk. The crowd is going bonkers with the emotion of seeing Dhoni lead an Indian side possibly one last time.The protagonist, though, isn’t nearly as emotional. He has made a career out of being unsentimental. He delivers a sobering speech that suggests it is not a big deal. That he will continue captaining in the IPL, and maybe even lead Jharkhand in domestic limited-overs cricket. Having said as much, he walks back to the dressing room, suggesting it will be no different to any other game. The fans at the stadium can’t hear this, but it doesn’t matter. All they want is for their hero to bat in every position from one to 11 over the next seven hours.But Dhoni has never been a camera-hugging showman. In his brooding, detached assurance, he is closer to his favourite actor Amitabh Bachchan. Or, even Clint Eastwood in the homespun, cigar-chomping swag. But, Dhoni isn’t going to hog screen-time here. A clinical cameo is more up his alley.”Dhoniiiiiiii….Dhoniiiiii, Dhoniiiiiiii….Dhoniiiiii….”India A are into their last ten overs. The fans are growing restless. They cheer the fall of each wicket, hoping and praying it will force Dhoni out of the dressing room. They look expectantly towards the pavilion at the fall of Mandeep Singh in the eighth over and Shikhar Dhawan in the 29th, but there is no sign of him. Is it possible Dhoni may not bat at all? They cheer Yuvraj Singh’s fifty, and even chant Ambati Rayudu’s name after he completes his hundred, almost as if to tell him he has done enough and let Dhoni take his place. Two balls later, at the end of the 41st over, that is exactly what happens.The fans aren’t jumping the gun, lest it be some other batsman. But this time Dhoni shows up for good. He acknowledges Rayudu’s knock first with a nod and then a handshake before turning around to look to the skies. There is a comforting familiarity to the ritual, especially in Mumbai. The high-decibel intonation of the ensuing “Dhoni” chants mirrors the best-known one in the country – “Sachin…Sachin”. The magnitude of the occasion doesn’t escape Yuvraj, who claps his bat to salute Dhoni. It is also a reunion of sorts for the duo after not having played a 50-over game together in more than three years.Dhoni begins like he normally does – scrappy and sloppy before screaming into action. He defends his first ball to the leg side, is hit on the thigh pad off the next and tries to pull the third one which nearly lobs up off his body on to the stumps. Dhoni is on 1 off 5 balls, and then on 5 off 10. But all he needs is one over to get to 15 off 15, and from there it is take-off time. There are wickets falling around him, but the uppish cuts and the muscular thunks down the ground are only rising in frequency.After the last-minute hand-wringing over security arrangements, all that is left is for a fan to troll the authorities by running on to the field. The invader in question has a free run until he is within a few feet of Dhoni. Upon nearing his idol, the fan, warned by the umpire to not run on the pitch, nearly loses his balance. Sensing his nervousness, Dhoni calmly offers his hand following which the fan falls at his feet. Once play has resumed, the torrent of whirly whips and crunching drives is unabated. Dhoni has found a fan at the non-striker’s end with Hardik Pandya shadow-practising his shots.A few hours earlier, Rishabh Pant, Dhoni’s would-be understudy in the England T20Is, smashed 84* off 34 balls in a local T20 tournament. By the time the innings comes to a close, Dhoni finishes with 68* off 40 balls himself. He’s still got it. He knows it, and the fans know it too. Many of them are leaving the stadium with visuals of his batting etched in their minds. But Dhoni knows it isn’t over yet. As Shah Rukh Khan, one of the biggest stars in Bollywood, will say: (there is more to come, my friend). – Dhoni after the two-bouncer-per-over rule was introduced in ODIsVenture to read Dhoni’s mind at your own risk, but it isn’t hard to imagine him wondering where the bouncers have disappeared. When Ashish Nehra and Mohit Sharma are being creamed by England’s openers, Dhoni’s gloves instinctively seal his lips. Delivery after full delivery is driven in the arc between cover and midwicket. The results are worse when they attempt to bang it in – the ball doesn’t climb above waist height and the batsmen are happy to pull. Hardik Pandya is the only one who bowls a pacy bouncer, but it goes too far over the batsmen’s head to pose any meaningful trouble.In many ways, this is a throwback to his troubles with errant seam bowlers, but Dhoni appears more relaxed, possibly in the knowledge that it isn’t his headache any longer. He constantly chats with Nehra, who typically makes exaggerated gesticulations, and is more than happy to share a laugh or two. – Dhoni ahead of the World Cup final in 2011The quirks you associate with Dhoni are firmly in place. There are the traffic-cop’s hand signals, albeit with the rationed intensity you expect in a warm-up game, the presence of a leg slip and the deployment of spinners in the middle overs to acquire control. There is one for the crowd as well, when he unleashes a backhanded flick with his left hand.But the unmistakable change is his remarkably chilled reaction to fielding lapses. While Dhoni is usually impassive when it comes to dropped catches – there are three – an overthrow or a slow approach to the ball invariably provokes a reaction. However, after Mandeep Singh fires an overthrow, there is no thumping of the gloves against each other. Even when Mohit Sharma, running from mid-on to midwicket to track down a ball, allows two runs, there is appreciation for the effort instead of annoyance.Towards the end, he even gets them to play his way. When England need 15 off 30, he brings the fielders in, hustles the batsmen and drags the game till the penultimate over. When it is all over, he gives his players a round of applause. This has been a more forgiving Dhoni at work. This isn’t to say the hard-nosed competitor is missing in action – you can count on him for plainspeak – but in the final stage of his career he has possibly metamorphosed into a statesman looking out for his charges with avuncular affection.

We often hear fans cry out for them as batsmen rack up the runs in T20, but there are reasons for why they aren’t as effective as they once were

Jarrod Kimber16-Apr-2017″Where has the real good yorker gone in the game? Where’s it gone? It’s not bowled enough,” says Kevin Pietersen. Ravi Shastri replies, “It’s not practised enough.” Pietersen agrees and adds, “Lasith Malinga before every game he bowled, all he would do is bowl at a cone, and you know he was trying to do one thing, and he was a master.”Ah, the yorker of yore, yes, why can’t we go back to that time, and make yorkers great again?This is a pretty typical conversation you hear on cricket commentary. This one came during the opening game of this season’s IPL. Just after the conversation fizzled out, something bizarre happened: Deepak Hooda went across until he was outside off stump, and then he went behind his stumps to play a shot.Pietersen made a huge deal about Hooda going behind the bowling crease. But the shot was a perfect explanation of why the talk about yorkers these days is so poor. Bowlers do bowl yorkers, and they do practise bowling yorkers. But no cone jumps outside off stump and then behind the stumps. Cones stand still.

Bowlers do bowl yorkers, and they do practise bowling yorkers. But no cone jumps outside off stump and then behind the stumps. Cones stand still

In 2016, more successful yorkers were bowled than in any other IPL season before it.

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ESPNcricinfo analysts have decided that a successful yorker is a ball that lands on a length where it yorks the bat. It couldn’t be more simple. If it bounces too short, it’s a half-volley; if the batsman hits it on the full, they mark it as a full toss. It doesn’t matter if the ball was a wicket or a four – to us they are yorkers.What we don’t have data on is unsuccessful yorkers – balls that were bowled the perfect length, but where the batsman changed the length through his footwork or shot, because there is no camera permanently above the wicket feeding us that data. We know that hardly ever is a full toss intentionally bowled, and that many are failed yorkers.Even without the empirical evidence that proves more successful yorkers are now bowled, it makes sense. In ODIs we have almost doubled the number of sixes in the last ten years, from 4.75 per match in 2006 to 8.73 in 2016. T20 seems as if it’s about to free itself of cricket norms and reach for the stars. Run rates in both formats are up, and bowlers are gasping for air. Would they really not try the ball even a casual fan would tell them is the hardest to score off?

Yorkers bowled in the IPL (2008-2016)

TournamentSuccessful yorkersPer match20082824.72009236420102914.8520112503.320123003.920132323.0520142694.420152303.820163295.4The historical data on the number of yorkers bowled per match in the IPL says a little about what has happened to batting in T20. An average of over four successful yorkers were bowled each game in the first three seasons. Then, as the real improvisations in batting took full effect, that dropped to under four, and in 2013 it was at 3.05. Since then bowlers have fought back and 2016 was the first season on record that was over five.The types of bowlers who have produced the most successful yorkers have also changed. In the first season of the IPL it was Munaf Patel and Glenn McGrath: tall, not very fast, accurate bowlers. Bowlers of that type have never led the league in yorkers since. The only time tall bowlers make that list is when they are out-and-out speed guys like Shaun Tait and Morne Morkel – every other bowler is regular-human size, not giant-fast-bowler size.So what happened after that one season?The data is conclusive: short, accurate bowlers like the Kumars Vinay, Praveen and Bhuvneshwar all feature in this list, as does fellow shorty Ashok Dinda. Umesh Yadav, Brett Lee and Dirk Nannes are there with their extra pace. None are that tall. And the bowlers with unpickable slower balls or weird actions, like Dwayne Bravo, Malinga, Jasprit Bumrah and Mustafizur Rahman are well accounted for.Short, accurate bowlers like Bhuvneshwar Kumar are more likely than tall ones to bowl good yorkers these days•AFPThe images that we have when we think of yorkers are of Joel Garner, Waqar Younis, Curtly Ambrose, Darren Gough and McGrath rattling stumps. Guys like Waqar and Gough still exist – shorter guys with more round-arm actions – but the taller guys have all but disappeared. As almost nothing in cricket happens by accident, the reason bowlers of this type don’t bowl as many yorkers anymore is that their yorkers aren’t working.A tall, accurate bowler has a larger chance of getting a yorker wrong than a shorter, skiddier bowler – that’s just science. Taller bowlers often have classical actions, as they are trying to make the most of their height, meaning nothing of their actions is a surprise for batsmen. And while some taller bowlers have great slower balls – Clint McKay is a perfect recent example – most of them haven’t had to master skullduggery, because in the lower levels of cricket their height and pace was more than enough.The perfect bowler of a yorker in T20 would be a 90mph unorthodox bowler with a low-arm action who has a hard-to-pick slower ball. Aka Malinga.

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When I was a teenager, the yorker tormented me. At the start I’d never got out to many, but then suddenly it was every second dismissal for months on end. This wasn’t just to the odd express bowler; I missed some kind-old-man medium pace as well. Not being very talented, all I could rely on was thinking my way out.And when I thought about yorkers, I realised how silly they were. I loved to drive; I could drive all day, full tosses and half-volleys, and yet when the ball was in between, instead of taking a big step down the wicket and playing a cover drive, I suddenly froze and was trying to dig them out.

Run rates are up and bowlers are gasping for air. Would they really not try the ball even a casual fan would tell them is the hardest to score off?

Did a yorker even exist, or was it a psychological construct that slowed my feet? Was I being tormented by myself and not the bowlers?The truth is somewhere in the middle. At pace, I don’t have the skill to just take a step forward and knock back a low full toss. Really accurate bowlers also found that exact yorker length that makes you doubt you can change the length. And then there is the surprise factor. In most proper cricket innings, the yorker is one of the balls you are least likely to face, so having an entire plan for it seemed kind of weird. Eventually I just reduced my backlift and went back to only being dismissed by a reasonable number of yorkers.There is obviously a science as to why the yorker is a good ball. If you try and play an attacking shot, your bat won’t be flush with the ground, opening up a chance for the ball to go under it. Unlike other balls, it makes you feel like you need to dig, not bat, which changes the way you bat, and often the face of the bat is not as straight. Plus, hitting the ground with the bat means you are not in control of it. And for generations the toe of the bat had the effectiveness of a piece of wilted lettuce.But batting is no longer a skinny kid with a cheap bat and endless cricket dread when facing a yorker; it has grown up too.

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In the ’90s, kiddies, things were different. If you wanted someone to go in and bash the ball, you often sent in a pinch-hitter, who was usually a big, strong bowler, like Pat Symcox or Craig McDermott. Batsmen hit the odd six, but if you needed a bunch, you sent in a strongman bowler or a strapping allrounder.Batsmen weren’t all little guys or slim-hipped fleet-of-foot types, but they were regular human size. Sure, cricket had flirted with bigger batsmen, but batsmen weren’t built for power. Lance Klusener only made international cricket because he was an allrounder. He wasn’t built like a batsman, and when he started in first-class cricket, he batted 11. In Tests, he batted as low as ten. But when he became a batsman, it was spectacular.Lance Klusener was among the few batsmen of his time who was seemingly impervious to yorkers•PA PhotosAt the 1999 World Cup he made 281 runs, averaging 140 at a strike rate of 122. The top order had been weaponised since 1996, but the middle order was still a place for human calculators like Michael Bevan, Russel Arnold and Chris Harris, with an allrounder thrown in to hopefully slog a few. Klusener combined both roles, and hit boundaries like an axeman while producing like a calculator; a middle-overs killing machine.There was no real way to contain him in that period, and that is largely because of what he did to yorkers. Other batsmen, like Carl Hooper, Martin Crowe and Dean Jones, had tried ways to make yorkers easier to play, with shorter backlifts or by batting deep in the crease or way out of it. But Klusener didn’t just chip yorkers around and score the odd boundary; he crushed the life out of them. Other batsmen struggled to get power from low full tosses; if you slightly overpitched to Klusener, he hit the ball with Thor’s hammer through cover or midwicket. If you underpitched even slightly, he’d destroy the ball over long-on. And even when you hit the perfect length, he dropped his massive bat made of anvils on the ball and it sped off square of the wicket.Klusener’s bat seemed ideal to handle yorkers, and he was range-hitting almost a generation before it became commonplace.Now there are many batsmen of Klusener’s size and strength. Batsmen, not bowlers, are now the big-muscle guys. The bats are also better, the middle longer, there is much more wood at the bottom, and they are lighter than when Klusener was playing. Range-hitting and getting your front foot out of the way are now just everyday cricket.

The perfect bowler of a yorker in T20 would be a 90mph unorthodox bowler with a low-arm action who has a hard-to-pick slower ball. Aka Malinga

The shots have changed too. Cricket has a long history of batsmen coming up with a shot that completely changes what bowlers have to do. In modern cricket, short fine-leg came up into the circle as batsmen started peppering the leg-side boundary in front of square, and so Douglas Marillier played a lap to that position. Ryan Campbell took it a step further. And then there was Tillakaratne Dilshan’s scoop, which was essentially an overhead sweep shot. None of those shots was specifically aimed at stopping yorkers, but all of them played a part in yorkers coming under attack.The one that seems to have directly come from yorkers was the helicopter shot that Santosh Lal gave his friend MS Dhoni. Instead of a normal drive with weight on the front foot, this was played off the back foot, and because of it, a yorker often became a half-volley. It’s about looser wrists, and flicking a ball in the air that you would normally have to hit down on, turning yorkers and near-yorkers into sixes.Recently Nasser Hussain did an incredible masterclass on the yorker. He starts off with a bunch of cones placed around the crease from just outside leg stump all the way to wide on the off side. The space enclosed, he explains, is where you could bowl a successful yorker five or ten years ago. Gradually, for a variety of reasons (reverse swing going, umpires getting stricter on leg-side wides) he starts removing cones until he’s standing within a tiny space.This space is bigger than the handkerchief that bowlers claimed to hit when practising bowling yorkers in the old days, but not that much bigger. It is there in this tiny little yorker place that he asks, even after allowing for everything he has just said: “Why aren’t they finding the hole more often?”Dilshan’s trademark scoop was one of the shots that made bowling yorkers a trickier business•AFPThese cones, like the ones Malinga aims at before his bowling, don’t move. The yorker hole is as small as it has ever been, and it moves more than ever before, depending on the batsman’s whims. The damn thing can run behind the stumps, be outside leg, or not be on the pitch on the off at all. Not to mention bigger batsmen and bats, better training, smaller grounds, and a format that practically begs for more sixes to be hit. And people ask why they’re not finding the hole?

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We have all heard a commentator, or our drunk uncle, say, “Just bowl 24 yorkers, it’s simple.” It isn’t simple. Garner couldn’t bowl 24 successful yorkers in a row. And that is with a batsman standing in roughly the same place on the crease each ball. If you went at 0.8 runs per yorker (the rough average across IPL history) for 18 balls, and the other balls in your spell went for two sixes, two fours and a couple of twos, you’re still looking at almost ten an over.Some modern batsmen actually like it when a bowler tries six yorkers in an over. It means they can formulate a plan, and they know that even if they don’t move in the crease much, one will be over- or under-pitched, and that one is gone. Five singles and a six is still 11 an over.Not all modern batsmen have power, not all improvise. There are some batsmen – let’s call them Pakistani – who are still playing T20 cricket in a pre-Klusener way, where against pace everything must go over midwicket. Other batsmen don’t have a lot of power, so usually they play their power shots to leg, so bowling wide yorkers to them can restrict them when the ball gets softer or they get tired.Most batsmen now do play all the shots. England bowled well to Carlos Brathwaite at the start of his innings in the World T20 final. Chris Jordan went with a wide yorker so that Brathwaite couldn’t use his power. Then David Willey tried straighter yorkers to cramp Brathwaite. He was new to the crease, he couldn’t find his timing, and the full bowling was doing the job. Then Brathwaite realised that this was their plan, so when Willey tried another one, he played a lap scoop, the first one he had ever played in a match, and it went for four. That was his only boundary before the final over.

We have all heard a commentator, or our drunk uncle, say, “Just bowl 24 yorkers, it’s simple.” It isn’t simple

Against Ben Stokes he stood deep in his crease, and after trying one into the pitch first ball, Stokes didn’t nail one good yorker in the next three he attempted. Had he tried a ball that wasn’t a yorker, he might have at least made Brathwaite think. Instead Brathwaite, like he did against Willey, knew where they were going to be, and used it to win the game.You could use Stokes’ over to prove how important yorkers can be, but it also shows what happens when you miss them now. The reward for yorkers has never been greater, but neither has the risk.When you look at data for the best Test bowlers, even on surfaces that help them, with no one moving around the crease or trying to slaughter each ball, they have groupings where the balls can pitch up to a metre apart, and usually more. And that is a bowler who is trying to run in and hit the same spot ball after ball for an entire day, whose body is grooved into that length by muscle memory. And yet they can’t do it. If they miss by 25 centimetres, looking for a good back-of-a-length ball, or a well-flighted offbreak, not much happens.Try missing a yorker by that much. The ball is gone.

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It started with coaches putting shoes on the crease and then asking their quicks to hit them. Then some bowling coaches tried having a piece of string set up a few inches above the ground and the bowlers have to bowl under them. Now there is a different system for England bowlers like Jordan.He puts one cone out for the wide yorker, one for the straight yorker, and one for the yorker down leg, for when the batsman backs away and gives himself room. Then as he comes in to bowl, his coach, Ottis Gibson, shouts out which colour cone he needs to aim for as he hits the crease. It is still not as exact as bowling to a batsman doing the same thing, but it’s clear that bowlers are trying to work this out. Bowlers have never practised yorkers more, or smarter, than they do now.Almost 10% of Malinga’s deliveries in the IPL have been yorkers – but they are still outnumbered by full tosses•BCCIThere is a clip online of Chris Woakes, Jimmy Anderson and Jordan bowling that shows them attempting to pitch it underneath a specially designed gate. The clip shows how good Jordan is at this; the other two regularly hit the gate (and Woakes and Anderson are renowned as very accurate bowlers) whereas Jordan regularly goes under the gate and hits the stump. The ECB put this video online, apparently to show how often their bowlers were hitting the yorker length; but even so, their bowlers did not hit it every ball. And one commenter, CallMeSir, said, “They play international cricket!! They should be hitting yorkers every time.”In basketball, if you are fouled when shooting, you receive a free throw. A shot with the game clock stopped, with no defenders in your face, where the player can take his time, from 15 feet, a shot that has been practised their entire life. NBA players in total still only hit that shot 77% of the time. They play in the best basketball league on earth! They should be hitting their free throws every time.

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Malinga was the first great T20 bowler. In seven IPL seasons he has 143 wickets at 17, with an economy rate of 6.67. Even as his pace has gone down over the years, even as his knee has troubled him and his midriff has occasionally ballooned out, he has been incredible year after year. And in all seven seasons he has played, he has led the league the in number of successful yorkers bowled.

IPL bowlers by yorker wicket percentage

BowlerYorkersBalls bowledYorker %Yorker wktsTotal wktsYorker wkts %Lasith Malinga21722899.482614318.18Shaun Tait194736.132238.70Glenn McGrath163244.941128.33Bhuvneshwar Kumar6216673.726857.06Dwayne Bravo6420183.1781226.56Morne Morkel3916292.395776.49Mustafizur Rahman3936610.661175.88Umesh Yadav5716433.474745.41Brett Lee428754.801254.00Vinay Kumar4920802.3141013.96L Balaji4515122.983763.95Jasprit Bumrah316824.551263.85Irfan Pathan4220312.073803.75Praveen Kumar6524252.683843.57Ashok Dinda4414503.031671.49Anureet Singh193765.050170.00Dirk Nannes226463.410280.00Vikram Singh163604.440120.00Of Malinga’s 143 IPL wickets, 18% are from yorkers. The next best is 8% for Tait. Tait also has the second-highest percentage of yorkers bowled (among bowlers who have bowled in over 20 games) with 6.13% – Malinga is at 9.48%. And you want to know how hard it is to bowl yorkers? The man that everyone in cricket says is the best yorker bowler in cricket bowls more full tosses than yorkers. And we don’t even have data on how many half-volleys he bowls.Malinga leads the league in percentage of full tosses bowled, 11.49%. From those, he has around 12% of his wickets. So from around 20.9% of his deliveries he takes 30.07% of his wickets. The next closest are Bumrah and Chris Morris, who bowl 15% and 12% of their balls as full tosses or yorkers, and those get them 11% and 12% of their wickets.

Full tosses and runs and wickets off them in the IPL (2008-16)

BowlerFull toss runsFull tossesFull toss ERFull toss wicketsLasith Malinga3162647.1817Praveen Kumar28313412.6713Dwayne Bravo2111319.666Bhuvneshwar Kumar1941299.028L Balaji21712310.595Vinay Kumar1871139.938Ashok Dinda18610410.734Irfan Pathan1649510.363Umesh Yadav1528810.365Jasprit Bumrah1618211.782Morne Morkel100619.842Mustafizur Rahman82519.652Brett Lee774610.041Shaun Tait48309.600Dirk Nannes44279.780Vikram Singh37249.251Glenn McGrath22158.800But it gets better when you look at the full-toss stats on their own. When Malinga bowls a full toss in the IPL, his bowling average is 18.5, and his economy is 7.18. He is better when bowling full tosses than most bowlers are when hitting the pitch. All the other top yorker bowlers go at over nine an over when bowling full tosses, because they are normal human beings. With the worst delivery in cricket, Malinga is still a gun. That is because even his full tosses and half-volleys are hard to play, because his deliveries do something that very few bowlers have ever managed to make theirs do: they dip.A normal high-arm action doesn’t let the ball dip much and even a roundish-arm action like Mitchell Johnson’s or Fidel Edwards’ doesn’t. Malinga’s action is so much lower than that of a normal bowler that he’s almost more of a freak than Murali. You can see at times the ball is not rotating end over end, like with an average seamer, but instead hovering like a UFO, and is just as unpredictable. And when he bowls a slower ball, they drop off a cliff. The number of times Malinga gets a wicket from a full toss that the batsman plays over the top of is incredible. So even when you pick the slower ball, and the length, the ball isn’t quite where you need it to be.

The reward for yorkers has never been greater, but neither has the risk

You can move around the crease to him, but when you do that, he either slides one through that skids low off the surface, making you mis-hit it, or he bowls one of these savage dipping cutters that goes underneath or over your blade. Not to mention that he’s still more than quick enough for a shock short ball. Angled-bat shots are more risky with him than with any seamer before him, and all you are left with is straight-bat shots, over his head or over your head.Why don’t more people bowl yorkers like Malinga does? The answer is simple: no one bowls yorkers like Malinga does. Asking another bowler to deliver yorkers like that is like asking another person to bowl at Shoaib Akhtar’s pace or with Shane Warne’s spin and consistency – it’s not going to happen. A tall bowler who bowls at the same pace as Malinga, with a standard action and a decent slower ball, would get murdered if he tried as many yorkers as Malinga.Forget your romantic image of the yorker of yore, the Malinga golden unicorn of destruction, and making the yorker great again. The yorker of reality is being tried. Sometimes it is bowled well, sometimes it isn’t bowled well; sometimes it works, and sometimes it ends up in row 17.That is the fate of the modern-day yorker.

Given how keenly the Border-Gavaskar Trophy was contested, it is of no surprise that the key numbers between the two sides stack up in similar fashion

S Rajesh29-Mar-20171.49 The difference in averages between the two teams: India averaged 28.13 runs per wicket to Australia’s 26.64. The miniscule difference in average illustrates how close the series was. Australia scored more runs and hundreds, but India took more wickets. Both teams bowled superbly and made run-scoring extremely difficult for the opposition batsmen, which is illustrated in run-rates of under 2.9 for both teams. The minimal difference in averages was in sharp contrast to the differences in the three other Test series in India’s season – the difference was 17.35 in the India-England series, 25.09 in the India-New Zealand series, and 52.7 in the one-off Test against Bangladesh.50.66 India’s average partnership for the seventh wicket, compared to Australia’s 23.57. In a low-scoring and hard-fought series, the seventh-wicket stands made a huge difference in the last two Tests, with Cheteshwar Pujara and Wriddhiman Saha adding 199 in Ranchi, and Saha and Ravindra Jadeja adding 96 in Dharamsala. On both occasions, those partnerships helped India take first-innings leads and put Australia under pressure. There was little to choose between the average stands for the first six wickets – India’s was 33.18, and Australia’s 33.62. Australia had 13 fifty-plus stands for the first six wickets compared to India’s eight.

Partnership stats for India and Australia

	India		Australia
Wkt	Ave stand	100/50 p’ships	Ave stand	100/50 p’ships
1st	34.85	0/ 1	31.62	0/ 3
2nd	45.57	1/ 2	36.37	1/ 0
3rd	36.00	0/ 1	24.87	0/ 1
4th	29.83	0/ 2	26.37	0/ 3
5th	43.66	1/ 0	54.12	2/ 1
6th	6.83	0/ 0	28.37	0/ 2
7th	50.66	1/ 1	23.57	0/ 0

22 Wickets taken by the pace bowlers of each team; India’s pace attack averaged 30.68, compared to Australia’s 31.54. Umesh Yadav was the stand-out fast bowler from either team, taking 17 wickets at 23.41. None of the Australian fast bowlers averaged below 30.

Pace and spin for each team in the series

	Pace			Spin
Team	Wkts	Ave	SR	Wkts	Ave	SR
India	22	30.68	61.7	52	24.13	56.9
Australia	22	31.54	66.2	38	24.73	55.5

25.26 Nathan Lyon’s bowling average in the series, which was marginally better than that of India’s offspinner, R Ashwin (27.38). In the first innings, Lyon took 15 wickets at 21.73, compared to Ashwin’s seven wickets at 45. In the second innings, though, Ashwin was much better, taking 14 wickets at 18.57, to Lyon’s four wickets at 38.50.All four spinners had superb numbers in the series, with Ravindra Jadeja besting the other three•ESPNcricinfo Ltd22.71 Ravindra Jadeja’s average in the first-innings, in which he took 14 wickets at a strike rate of 47.2. Among the four leading spinners in the series, Jadeja had the best overall numbers too, taking 25 wickets at 18.56.

Comparing the four spinners in the 1st and 2nd inngs

	1st inngs			2nd inngs
Bowler	Wkts	Ave	SR	Wkts	Ave	SR
Nathan Lyon	15	21.73	45.4	4	38.50	79.2
R Ashwin	7	45.00	120.7	14	18.57	36.2
Ravindra Jadeja	14	22.71	47.2	11	13.27	56.1
Steve O’Keefe	11	31.72	75.3	8	11.62	30.7

2.15 Ratio of Steven Smith’s series aggregate runs to that of the next highest for Australia. Smith scored 499 in the series, while Matt Renshaw’s 232 was the next best. The ratio of 2.15 is the second-best for any overseas batsman in India in a series of three or more Tests, next only to Matthew Hayden’s ratio of 2.25 over Steve Waugh in the 2001 series, when Hayden towered over the rest of Australia’s batsmen. Ironically, Australia lost both these series by an identical 2-1 margin. Overall, there have been four instances of a batsman aggregating twice as many runs as the next-best team-mate, in a series of three or more Tests in India.For only the fourth time in series of three or more Tests in India, one batsman scored more than twice as many runs as the next-highest from his team•ESPNcricinfo LtdThe head-to-head battles120 Smith’s average against Umesh: in 202 balls from Umesh, Smith scored 120 runs and was dismissed once. The bowler who fared best against Smith was Jadeja, dismissing him three times at an average of 40.66.

Smith v India’s top three bowlers in the series

Bowler	Runs	Balls	Dismissals	Average
R Ashwin	132	215	2	66.00
Ravindra Jadeja	122	355	3	40.66
Umesh Yadav	120	202	1	120.00

16.6 Matt Renshaw’s average against India’s pace attack. He was dismissed three times by Umesh (average 16), and twice by Ishant Sharma (average 15). Renshaw was far more comfortable against India’s spinners, averaging nearly 50 against them. He averaged 75 against Ashwin, and 57 against Jadeja.6 Number of times David Warner was dismissed by India’s spinners, in eight innings. Unlike Renshaw, Warner was far more comfortable against pace, averaging almost 40 against them, while his average dropped to less than 20 against spin. He was dismissed three times by Ashwin (average 22.33), and twice by Jadeja (average 13).

Australia’s openers v pace and spin

Batsman	Bowler type	Runs	Balls	Dismissals	Average
David Warner	Pace	78	107	2	39.00
David Warner	Spin	115	202	6	19.16
Matt Renshaw	Pace	83	226	5	16.60
Matt Renshaw	Spin	149	380	3	49.66

104 KL Rahul’s average against Australia’s pace attack – he scored 208 runs against them and was dismissed twice. Pat Cummins dismissed him both times, conceding 51 runs, but against Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, Rahul scored 156 runs without being dismissed.1.34 Murali Vijay’s scoring rate, in terms of runs per over, against Australia’s pace attack: in 143 balls against them, he scored only 32 and was dismissed three times, for an average of 10.66. Vijay was more comfortable against the spinners, averaging 40.5 at a much healthier run rate.

India’s openers v pace and spin

Batsman	Bowler type	Runs	Balls	Dismissals	Average
KL Rahul	Pace	208	355	2	104.00
KL Rahul	Spin	185	343	4	46.25
Murali Vijay	Pace	32	143	3	10.66
Murali Vijay	Spin	81	153	2	40.50

117 Cheteshwar Pujara’s average against Steve O’Keefe – he scored 117 runs off him from 342 balls, and was dismissed once. The only bowler who dismissed Pujara more than once in the series was Lyon, who got him out three times at an average of 37.

Pujara v Australia’s top bowlers

Bowler	Runs	BF	Wkt	Ave
Steve O’Keefe	117	342	1	117.00
Nathan Lyon	111	293	3	37.00
Josh Hazlewood	98	236	1	98.00
Pat Cummins	54	102	0	–
Mitchell Starc	15	40	1	15.00

They could have pulled off a 2-0 victory over Australia, but collapsed to 97 for 6 on the fourth day in Chittagong and had to settle for a 1-1 draw

Mohammad Isam in Chittagong07-Sep-20173:47

Isam: Lyon’s spell one of the best in Bangladesh

Bangladesh have certainly shown that they are a much-improved Test team, and so their collapse on the fourth day – slipping to 97 for 6 – was an opportunity missed. The opportunity to win a Test series against Australia. The opportunity of a generation.They had stood firm in more difficult circumstances earlier this year, in Wellington and in Colombo. Their bout with India, the No. 1 team in the world, was definitely not pretty for the bowlers but their batsmen showed themselves capable of fighting back. Having been made to follow-on, Bangladesh lasted more than 100 overs, making R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja earn the eventual victory.Chittagong, though, was a disappointment. Trailing by 72 runs when they began their second innings, none of the top five could make more than 15 runs. It didn’t seem like they lacked for technique but more the mettle to handle a difficult situation. Nathan Lyon had spooked them in Dhaka, and he was playing on their minds again when proceedings at Zahur Ahmed Chaudhary stadium were barely an hour old. There was no turn off the pitch and yet they lost three wickets in the first session – all to Lyon, all off straight balls. It appeared like Bangladesh were in denial, as if they thought they had no weaknesses in playing spin.They also didn’t have a settled middle-order. Four different batsmen were used at No. 4 – each one given only one innings yielding a top score of 31. The seniors Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim also exchanged positions at five and six. They finished the series with a specialist No. 3 batting at No. 8 but Mominul Haque’s demotion, it turns out, was part of a strategy meant to deny Australia’s bowlers a steady diet of left-handers.”We had planned to mix up the batting orders,” Mushfiqur said. “It wasn’t based on what someone did in the previous innings. We gave each of them a game plan but if they can’t execute it, the team management can’t be blamed. We were not getting what we expected from Sabbir [Rahman] at No. 4 so when he did well at No. 7 in the first innings, we kept him there. Shakib always plays at No 5. We had three openers in the top-order so we couldn’t change that. We wanted to send out a right-hander to make it harder for them.”On the bright side, Mushfiqur did feel that Mominul was impressive against Lyon. “I think he handled the best offspinner in the world very well and showed to those who said he can’t play offspin. I hope we keep these things in mind when making the combination next time.”Soumya Sarkar goes low for a sweep•Getty ImagesBangladesh could have turned a 1-1 scoreline into 2-0 but their insistence to keep Soumya Sarkar at the top of the order might have hurt them. It led to the breaking up of their most successful opening partnership in history – Tamim Iqbal and Imrul Kayes.The team management might have seen the Dhaka pitch and realised it would turn big. So they would have liked Sarkar as an attacking option at the top of the order. After all, he had already struck four Test fifties in 2017. However, his lack of footwork put paid to those ideas, finding life especially difficult against Pat Cummins, who had him caught behind twice in four innings.In the first Test, with 11 balls to stumps on the second day, Sarkar danced down the pitch and holed out in the deep for 15. In Chittagong, despite looking out of nick, he lasted over two hours in the first innings before he was dismissed for 33 by a non-turning offbreak from Lyon.Touch players can be a pleasure to watch, but the moment there is a problem in their hand-eye coordination, things can do downhill quickly. Sarkar found that out against Australia, finishing the series with 65 runs at an average of 16.25 amid chatter that his place in the team as in danger. And then was knock-on effect as well.Kayes, who had admitted he wasn’t suited to No. 3, looked out of sorts all series. His final act was a soft poke outside his off stump to be caught at point. On another day, he might have left that ball well alone. Now there is debate over whether he is needed in the team, as is bound to happen when a player scores only 21 runs over four innings. With numbers like those, will he be able to command a place in the squad for the next assignment, a tour of South Africa?Nasir Hossain was caught by Matthew Wade for 45•Getty ImagesThere will be similar questions asked about Nasir Hossain, who was dismissed by left-arm spin in all four innings, a style of bowling Bangladeshi batsmen grow up facing and one practiced by South Africa’s lead spinner Keshav Maharaj.Sabbir Rahman made his highest Test score of 66 in the first innings in Chittagong, which might probably work in his favour, and he would need that after his dismissal second time around, when he charged out of his crease looking to attack, then inexplicably changed his mind to try and defend and was eventually stumped by a long way. Then again, taking on the bowling is Sabbir’s role in the team and he is generally quite good at it.Mushfiqur had highlighted the importance of the rest of the team pulling their weight, and not relying on Tamim and Shakib to produce match-turning performances. Such was the case in the second innings in Chittagong and there was no back-up to be found.”We had a chance to draw the game in Galle earlier this year,” Mushfiqur said when asked to comment on Bangladesh slipping up in key moments. “In these critical situations, we end up having one really bad session which makes it hard for us. I think we lack maturity and there are some technical problems too.”This adds to the lack of confidence when you are trying to play defensively. We have room for improvement in terms of our technique. Warner was a great example in front of us. He is an aggressive batsman but he probably scored his slowest hundreds this time.”Bangladesh have shown, since their resurgence in 2015, that they can get out of trouble given time. The problem is, their next tour is in South Africa and it is in less than two weeks.